Protesters in Haiti’s capital are lashing out at U.N. peacekeepers and the government, blocking roads and attacking foreigners’ vehicles.
Demonstrators are setting up burning barricades, and Haitian police have fired tear gas.
U.N. and non-governmental organization vehicles have been pelted with rocks.
The growing protest comes a week before national elections, and marchers are destroying campaign posters for President Rene Preval’s Unity party.
It follows days of rioting in northern Haiti over suspicions that U.N. soldiers introduced a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 1,000 people.
The U.N. military mission denies responsibility for the epidemic even though Swedish diplomat issued statement to the effect that all tests support – 99% – that MINUSTAH is responsible.
A Swedish diplomat stated on Wednesday that Haiti’s cholera outbreak originated in Nepal.
“Unfortunately that is the case. It has proved that the cholera came from Nepal,” Claes Hammar, Sweden’s ambassador to Haiti, told daily Svenska Dagbladet.
Hammar, who visited Haiti two weeks ago, said the information came from “a diplomatic source. It is 100 per cent true. Tests were made and the source was traced to Nepal.”
On November 1, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said the cholera strain linked to the outbreak is “most similar” to cholera strains found in South Asia. However, it cautioned that more work was needed to determine the origin of the cholera strain in Haiti.
The Nepalese Army on Tuesday refuted charges that its peacekeepers were responsible for the epidemic that has claimed more than 1,000 lives, a day after protests in Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second-largest city.
One person was killed and at least 12 people, including six Nepalese soldiers, were injured in clashes resulting from the protests, in which thousands of people participated.
“The UN has already issued a press release saying the Nepalese forces were not responsible for the cholera outbreak after conducting a series of tests,” Nepalese Army spokesman Ramindra Chettri said in Kathmandu.
The first outbreak of the disease, which is contracted through contaminated water and causes severe diarrhea and vomiting, was reported in the lower Artibonite region, north of capital Port-au-Prince Oct 22.
On Tuesday, neighboring Dominican Republic reported its first case of cholera – that of a migrant worker from Haiti.
According to Partners in Health, Haiti has not had a documented case of cholera since the 1960s. But conditions were ripe for an epidemic even before the Jan 12 earthquake because of an unsafe water supply system, which was further weakened over the years by a series of hurricanes, followed by floods and mudslides.
The earthquake killed more than 300,000 people and left more than 1.5 million homeless.
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COMMENT: HAITIAN-TRUTH.ORG
This should not come as news.
The Nepalese battalions left Nepal as a cholera outbreak hit their homeland. Shortly after their arrival media representatives, led by an Al Jazeera team filmed a SANCO truck dumping shit from the Nepalese detachment of MINUSTAH into the Artibonite River system, a system that provides millions of Haitians with their water supplies. Within 5 days the epidemic started.
And, in spite of this evidence, Edmund Mulet, and the MINUSTAH leadership, avoided the obvious conclusion.
A POLITICAL COVER UP!!!
MINUSTAH HAD POLLUTED A MAJOR RIVER SYSTEM AND WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THOUSANDS OF DEATHS.
THIS IS CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE, OR IS IT SOMETHING MORE?????!!!!
MEDIA PEOPLE PHOTOGRAPHED A SANCO TRUCK DUMPING THE NEPALESE DETACHMENT’S UNTREATED HUMAN WASTE INTO THE ARTIBONITE. SANCO IS OWNED BY ELIZABETH DELATOUR AND JUDE CELESTIN. DELATOUR IS PRESIDENT PREVAL’S WIFE AND CELESTIN IS PREVAL’S CHOSEN CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY!!!
PERHAPS THIS IS MURDER…OR, AT THE VERY LEAST…MANSLAUGHTER ON A MASSIVE SCALE.
SOMEONE SHOULD SUE MINUSTAH AND THE PREVAL TEAM IN THE HAGUE .
PREVAL MUST GO.
EDMUND MULET MUST GO.
MINUSTAH MUST BE BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL!!